Putting Myself Together - by Jamaica Kincaid

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Highlights

My ignorance was on my side.
About the Author: Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John's, Antigua.
336 Pages
Literary Collections, Essays

Description

Book Synopsis

My ignorance was on my side. I wasn't afraid. I didn't know what to be afraid of. I did one thing, I did another. I did what I now call crashing about. One day I started to write.

This collection of Jamaica Kincaid's nonfiction writing, including early pieces from publications such as The New Yorker, The Village Voice, and Ms., proves what her admirers have always known: from the start, she has been a consummate stylist, and she has always been herself.

From "Jamaica Kincaid's New York," which narrates her move to the city from Antigua at the age of sixteen and a half, to the classic "Biography of a Dress," her cultural criticism, and her original thinking about the meaning of the garden, Kincaid writes about the world as she finds it, imparting her own quizzical, rapier-sharp response to whatever crosses her path.

Putting Myself Together is a brilliant, trenchant, hilarious self-portrait of the artist and a testament to how this inimitable, self-created mind and spirit, endowed with wit, humor, and fearlessness, has become one of our greatest, most original writers.

Review Quotes

"Putting Myself Together captures [Kincaid's] questing sensibility through a half-century's worth of personal essays and cultural criticism that provide a model of sumptuous slow thinking." --Niela Orr, The New York Times

"Since her 1985 debut novel, Annie John, the Antiguan-born Kincaid has been impossible to ignore . . . The works [collected in Putting Myself Together] speak of a person who has refused to be defined by any kind of constraints." --Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times

"Kincaid's cutting prose shines, and the collection makes for a marvelous account of the author's life and career. This is a triumph." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Putting Myself Together traces the shifts in Jamaica Kincaid's preoccupations--from the intricacies of social dynamics to the verdant dynamics of a garden bed." --Maggie Lange, W Magazine

"Kincaid is a master of literary nonfiction's multifarious forms." --Walton Muyumba, The Boston Globe

About the Author

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John's, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, Mr. Potter, See Now Then, and, with Kara Walker, An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children. She lives in Vermont.

Dimensions (Overall): 8.25 Inches (H) x 5.38 Inches (W) x 1.0 Inches (D)

Weight: 1.0 Pounds

Suggested Age: 22 Years and Up

Number of Pages: 336

Genre: Literary Collections

Sub-Genre: Essays

Publisher: Picador USA

Format: Paperback

Author: Jamaica Kincaid

Language: English

Street Date: August 4, 2026

TCIN: 1005574091

UPC: 9781250437884

Item Number (DPCI): 247-44-6329

Origin: Made in the USA or Imported

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Shipping details

Estimated ship dimensions: 1 inches length x 5.38 inches width x 8.25 inches height

Estimated ship weight: 1 pounds

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